My collection of material pleasures including but not limited to rug hooking -- rugs I love, rugs I'm making, ideas for new rugs -- and other hobbies and passions. I have 7 chickens I adore and love to ride my bike. I am a voracious reader and I enjoy cooking--occasionally!
-- Sharlene Washington

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Friday, January 28, 2011

I have 7 hens, three laying boxes (kitty litter boxes filled with bedding). The girls all seem to prefer the box on the right, although occasionally someone lays an egg in the center. Between them, they lay between 2 and 6 eggs a day. You can see the set-up below in a photo of the coop before the walls were put on.

Yesterday I went out before I went to work as usual and found 1 egg in the right box. I thought I'd move it to the center and see if anyone got the hint and maybe lay an egg next to it in the center box. When I came home from work, I found two eggs in the right box--NO eggs in the center. I quizzed all family members and no one brought in eggs or moved anything. Puzzling...

This morning there was another egg (right side box of course). Again I moved it to the center box. When I came home, guess what... Six eggs--in the right side box. NO eggs in the center box. Can a chicken move an egg like that? It was lifted at least 3-4 inches and across the gap between the boxes 1-2 inches wide.

I wish I had a webcam! Is it really possible that one of my chickens (or maybe more working as a team) are moving eggs like this?

Thursday, January 27, 2011

My spaghetti sauce recipe was named one of the top 10 recipes of 2010 out of over 400,000 recipes on Food.com (formerly Recipezaar.com).

The JoMama in JoMama's World Famous Spaghetti has a story behind it. Several years ago my daughter was renting a house with a couple of roommates (pre cell phone). I called the house to talk to her and one of the roommates answered. She handed the phone off to my daughter who asked, "Who is it?" "Your mama" was the reply. My daughter heard "JoMama". Who is JoMama? she thought. She didn't know anyone named JoMama. Anyway, it was funny and I ended up getting tagged with that nickname.

The recipe has been a family favorite for many years. It also makes a great sauce for lasagna! You can find the recipe by clicking this link!

My kids pointed out to me that if you do a Google search for "spaghetti" my recipe is the first result you will get. I'm pretty proud!

Sunday, January 23, 2011

We got off to a great start for the year with 29 members in attendance.

The highlight of the meeting was a lovely visit from Aldiva Buran and Vera Parker. They both brought a few of the rugs they have made over the years and shared with us some memories from the early days of the guild.

My favorite rug of Aldiva's was this sampler-type piece that incorporated a variety of stitches.

Monday, January 17, 2011

We had a foggy start this morning, but when the sun came out and it got a little warmer, Brittany and I decided to go for a bike ride. We had wanted to do a longer ride, but ended up choosing to ride on Los Gatos Creek Trail.

I have set some goals for my riding for the year. It is helping me get in shape physically and it is so mentally relaxing as well. I set short-term goals as well as longer goals.

Short: Every 30 days I set a new goal to hit 300 miles in 30 days. I don't always make it, but it helps me get to a longer goal of 1000 miles in 100 days.

Longer: I am into my 2nd 1000 mile challenge. I just missed making it last time because I ended up having bronchitis the last three weeks of the challenge. I figured make the goal again during the heavy rainy season would be a challenge, but I opted in again.

Even Longer!: I got this idea from someone else's blog, shebicycles.com--I am going to try to ride my bike 330 days out of 365 this year. Anything counts because it all adds up. Sometimes the most difficult part of going for a ride is making the decision to do it.

Biking provides time to think...sometimes I listen to an audio book that I have uploaded to my cell phone...and sometimes I just like to listen to the sounds around me. Nothing like going fast to make me feel like a teenager again. What I need now is my teenage body back! I’m on my way though. Since I made the commitment to ride I have lost 11 pounds!

Tuesday, January 4, 2011

I did get a number of bike rides in including a 30+ mile ride up Stevens Canyon Road to the end with my son-in-law--a major accomplishment for this old gal that couldn't make it up a freeway overpass just 6 months ago. This ride had 1300 feet of increase in elevation. I'm very excited about how much progress I am making. I can't hang with the big guys yet, but they better be watching out!

Sunday, January 2, 2011

I didn't get everything done during the holiday break that I had planned, but I did get cabinets put together and organized most of my wool. Among other things, I had planned to dye wool for Rapture, but the days were all too short weren't they?

As you can see, most of my wool is natural or oatmeal or solids right off the bolt. I don't dye anything until I know exactly what I plan to do with it. It would be much prettier and probably more useful if I had some inventory of colors I love and use regularly. What kind of a stash do you have? Do you collect overdyed wool--ready to use? Do you dye your heart out and then try to figure out what you are going to do with it? I'm sure everyone has a system that works for them. So far, this plan does keep me in wool.

I haven't figured out how to organize all of those little pieces left over from a project. So far, I have quite a collection of them in the square bins, but they are difficult to see. I also have a basket full of worms, although I'm sure there are a few bags more of them lurking in a closet somewhere.